Endless Thread

By WBUR

Technology

What's Endless Thread about?

Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.

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LAST EPISODE

OK, Lamp!

06.01.2023

This week on Endless Thread, host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter look at a meme inspired by supermodel Bella Hadid's call to compliment each other on attributes other than physical appearance, and ask what really makes for an ...

Endless Thread episodes:

06.01.2023 OK, Lamp! This week on Endless Thread, host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter look at a meme inspired by supermodel Bella Hadid's call to compliment each other on attributes other than physical appearance, and ask what really makes for an ...
05.26.2023 Encore: Angel's Glow In the aftermath of the Civil War's Battle of Shiloh in 1862, something strange happened. Some soldiers' wounds started to glow. Stranger still, those with glowing wounds seemed to have better rates of survival. In 2001, a teenage Civil War ...
05.19.2023 Come to the Orchestra Can you have an orgasm from listening to music? Can you legally own more than six dildos in Texas? Endless Thread digs into several sexy questions that have taken over the internet. Note: This episode may not be suitable for ...
05.12.2023 #BlackFaeDay Once upon a time, in a magical land of Oklahoma, fairy Jasmine LaFleur wanted to create a hashtag to unite Black fairies all across the land. And she did. Since 2021, on the second Saturday of May, Black fairy enthusiasts ...
05.05.2023 Oranges and Bucket Lists This week, we have two stories about etymology. What can words teach us about culture, trade, memory, and the world around us? First up, which “orange” came about first: the fruit or the color? We also discuss the history of ...
04.28.2023 The Birds and the Bugs Do you ever listen to birds singing catchy little melodies and wonder - wait a second, do they know music theory? Can they sing in thirds and fifths? Half steps and whole steps? Do they have perfect pitch? Amory and ...
04.21.2023 Endless Thread presents Outside/In: How to build a solar-powered website What if the internet was only available most of the time? This week, Endless Thread presents an episode of Outside/In — a podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio — about a man in Barcelona who is trying to make the ...
04.14.2023 Help Us Remember Sunil Tripathi In the days after the 2013 Boston bombing, an online hunt for the perpetrators falsely accused Brown University student Sunil Tripathi. Police later discovered that Tripathi, who had been showing signs of depression, had died by suicide. Endless Thread revisits ...
04.07.2023 The Lullaby Our intrepid sound designer, Matt Reed — musician/composer extraordinaire —recently became a dad. He picked up a Glo Worm for his baby son, Sam. It's a plush musical baby toy made by Hasbro that's been around for decades. It plays ...
03.31.2023 'Stuff Your 15-Minute Cities!' What do livable and walkable urban environments have to do with "the real life Hunger Games"? And why are people in Oxford, England and elsewhere coming out in droves to protest seemingly innocuous traffic restrictions? On this episode of Endless ...
03.24.2023 Asking Science About Giraffe On a sunny day in March 2020, researchers in South Africa discovered the bodies of two giraffes. From what they could tell, the giraffes had died a few days earlier. But the cause was a mystery. To understand what happened, ...
03.23.2023 'Violation,' Part 1: Two sons, lost Why did Jacob Wideman murder Eric Kane? In 1986, the two 16-year-olds were rooming together on a summer camp trip to the Grand Canyon when Jacob fatally — and inexplicably — stabbed Eric. That night, Jacob went on the run, ...
03.17.2023 Pawn Man Evan Kail is a wise-cracking antique dealer and TikToker. Last September, his world turned upside down when one of his videos ignited an international media frenzy. In his words, the TikTok created a "perfect storm." The subject of the video? ...
03.15.2023 Endless Thread introduces Violation, a new podcast about who pulls the levers of power in the justice system We thought Endless Thread fans would want to hear this trailer for a new podcast from WBUR. Violation tells the story of two families bound together by an unthinkable crime. It explores America's opaque parole system and asks: How much ...
03.10.2023 Owl pursuits Last fall, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't clear was whether the owl was trying to befriend them, or catch them. Endless Thread host Ben Brock Johnson and ...
03.03.2023 Return of the Aunties It's been eight months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and more people are relying on Reddit for help accessing abortion services than ever. Endless Thread revisits r/auntienetwork and looks at how it and other online communities are ...
02.24.2023 Aftershocks Online The people of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon are still recovering from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people and injured thousands more. Two weeks later, another earthquake shook the region. Ben and producer Quincy Walters talk about ways ...
02.17.2023 The Journeys of two Russian Anti-war YouTubers This week, Endless Thread spends time talking with two young Russian YouTubers who've had to contend with Russia's crackdown on wartime dissent. Natasha and Zack initially gained traction on YouTube for their videos about Russian food, culture, and daily life. ...
02.10.2023 My Canadian Girlfriend Did you have a friend who claimed they were in a long distance relationship with someone really awesome and super hot...but darn it, you could never meet their girlfriend, boyfriend, or SO, because he/she/they lived in Canada? And did suspect ...
02.03.2023 Him: An AI Love Story What happens when you date a chatbot? The app Replika lets users design artificially intelligent bots to be their romantic partners. But the real love story may be more about users learning to love themselves. Credits: This episode was written ...
01.27.2023 Worm Wars When Endless Thread producer Nora Saks learns that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine", she starts sounding the alarm about the impending eco-doom. Until, that is, state experts clue her into the "real ...
01.20.2023 'Sinbad Smith' and the troll pole Amory shares a 10-year-old Reddit post with Ben showing a photo of a college student with an epic-looking wooden staff and a caption that baffled the photo's subject. Ben shares a Trivial Pursuit question that launched a mystery fit for ...
01.13.2023 'You are powerful': Remembering Aaron Swartz Amory and Ben honor the legacy of internet activist Aaron Swartz with two people familiar with his life and work: documentary filmmaker Brian Knappenberger (The Internet's Own Boy) and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Swartz died by suicide ...
01.06.2023 Encore: Llama at a Wedding “What are the dimensions of an adult llama?” asked a Redditor called Mrs. Sam Handwich in the "No Stupid Questions" community. "I've been hired to make a tuxedo for a llama and I don't have its measurements," she added. In ...
12.30.2022 Encore: Unsent Letters The unsent letter. We all have one, half-composed in our heads or fully-formed as an email draft. Whatever form these letters take, they go unsent because they might be better left unsent, or because we wouldn’t know how to send ...
12.24.2022 Bonus: The ‘Stinetingler’ himself Team Endless Thread is here with your holiday bonus — a bonus episode, that is! If you heard our most recent episode on 'Goosebumps The Musical,' you know that Amory got to talk to R.L. Stine, author of the wildly ...
12.23.2022 Listener beware... When producer Quincy Walters came to an Endless Thread episode ideas meeting talking about 'Goosebumps The Musical,' Amory had two questions: 1) “That’s a thing?!” and 2) “Is it… good?” Yep and YEP! So why haven’t more people heard of ...
12.16.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part VI: Something Like Us Can a machine think like a human? Can it be conscious? For decades the answer was clear: nope. But artificial intelligence today is challenging that notion. In our last Good Bot, Bad Bot episode, Endless Thread goes to Google, the ...
12.09.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part V: Dating Bots If you've ever used a dating app, chances are you've encountered a bot, most likely a fake account or a scammer. But this week on Endless Thread, we investigate a new type of bot that is helping users optimize their ...
12.02.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part IV: Tay Next up in our bots series, we bring you a cautionary tale about Tay, a Microsoft chatbot that has lived on in infamy. Tay was originially modeled to be the bot-girl-next-door. But after only sixteen hours on Twitter, Tay was ...
11.25.2022 Encore: Shrinkflation From the supermarket to the housing market, products are getting smaller but prices are not. Why is this happening? And can it be stopped before the toilet paper roll disappears right before our very… reaching hands? In this encore episode, ...
11.18.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part III: Life, death and AI Next up in our bots series, we explore a growing field of AI: immortalizing the dead through predictive AI text. We talk to two individuals who utilized this tech in different ways, and discuss how these bots can help us ...
11.11.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part II: Political Bots Next in our series Good Bot, Bad Bot: the possibilities of bots being used in governments around the world. How can bots increase transparency and shine a light on corruption, such as insider trading, among our elected officials? Will bots ...
11.04.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part I: Bot Therapy For the next few weeks, the Endless Thread team will be sharing stories all about the rise of bots. How are these pieces of software influencing our daily lives in sneaky, surprising ways? First up, our co-hosts delve into the ...
10.31.2022 Encore: Haunted House, Holy Water When Alex was in high school, he and his best friend used to break into abandoned houses. Alex was a tough guy, giving people hell. Until one night, in one of those abandoned houses... hell gave him something back. This ...
10.28.2022 Encore: Olga of Kiev Olga of Kiev executed one of the most bone-chilling revenge tours in history after her husband, Igor, was murdered. Then, with a burning city in her wake, she converted to Christianity and became a saint. This episode was originally released ...
10.27.2022 Encore: Imaginary Friend When Kellie's 3 year-old daughter told her about her new imaginary friend, Kellum, she didn't think too much of it. But gradually, Kellum started to feel less and less... imaginary. Kellie and her daughter, Madison, tell us everything. This episode ...
10.21.2022 Anti-fans, online hate, and Caroline Calloway This week, we investigate the rise and fall of online influencer Caroline Calloway and the bigger question: Why do some people love to hate? ****** Credits: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by ...
10.14.2022 Lazy Geoff A Twitter thread about a fox named “Lazy Geoff” drew the attention of thousands online. But can a fox really be lazy? Our search for an answer revealed a surprising shift in how humans understand animals and, maybe, the fate ...
10.07.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Listener Response: Crypto in the Gaming World An Endless Thread listener sends their response to our Tales from the Crypto series. They make the case that crypto and NFTs could improve the video game industry. Ben and Amory also give their final thoughts and reflections on Tales ...
09.30.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Part III: Crypto for Kids In the final installment of our Tales from the Crypto series, Endless Thread producer Nora Saks and co-host Ben Brock Johnson talk to kids — and parents — who are going cuckoo for cryptocurrency. ****** Credits: This episode was written ...
09.23.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Part II: Bitcoin Beach One year ago, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender — the first nation in the world to do so. But how did Bitcoin make its way into this Latin American country? It all started in the coastal town of El ...
09.16.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Part I: The Hype In this first installment of our cryptocurrency mini-series, co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dive into a viral tweet about NFTs aiding Ukrainians with the war effort against Russia, as well as plans for a crypto island paradise that ...
09.09.2022 Enigma in Sweatpants Endless Thread producer Quincy Walters profiles IG Bum, a mischeivous online content creator who has achieved viral stardom. But who is IG Bum when the cameras stop rolling? ****** Credits: This episode was written and produced by Quincy Walters. Mixing ...
09.02.2022 Swimming Hole: The man, the myth, the leap In this end-of-summer episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory take a leap of faith (or do they?) to the depths of an upstate New York swimming hole with a legend surrounding it that's almost as shadowy as exact it's ...
08.26.2022 Encore: Ghost Town In the summer of 2018, Brent Underwood got a text in the middle of the night from a friend saying, "Look at this ghost town for sale!" Within a month, Brent had purchased Cerro Gordo, California, an abandoned silver mining ...
08.19.2022 Don't Do That You shouldn't do it. But then you do, and it turns out great. Two stories of rule-breaking's good side: A college senior prank emails to his entire school, and wild monkeys take residence in a Florida parking lot. ****** Credits: ...
08.12.2022 Jokes, Part II: Stand Up The first documented bar joke was copied onto a clay tablet 4,000 years ago in the ancient language of Sumerian. Scholars have translated it, but the meaning remains lost. After the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted the joke in March, thousands ...
08.05.2022 Jokes, Part I: Sumer Funny, Sumer Not What makes the world’s first documented bar joke funny? No one knows. In a tweet that garnered thousands of responses in March, the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted about a 4,000-year-old proverb written on a clay tablet. The line, which experts ...
07.29.2022 Alyssa When a Reddit post about constant “locker room talk” in a male-dominated office gained traction in the r/TwoXChromosomes subreddit, Ben and Amory invite the OP to talk about the story behind her post. This episode discusses sexual assault from 23:48 ...

Older episodes

Endless Thread

What's Endless Thread about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Endless Thread episodes:

OK, Lamp!

Encore: Angel's Glow

Come to the Orchestra

#BlackFaeDay

Oranges and Bucket Lists

The Birds and the Bugs

Endless Thread presents Outside/In: How to build a solar-powered website

Help Us Remember Sunil Tripathi

The Lullaby

'Stuff Your 15-Minute Cities!'

Asking Science About Giraffe

'Violation,' Part 1: Two sons, lost

Pawn Man

Endless Thread introduces Violation, a new podcast about who pulls the levers of power in the justice system

Owl pursuits

Return of the Aunties

Aftershocks Online

The Journeys of two Russian Anti-war YouTubers

My Canadian Girlfriend

Him: An AI Love Story

Worm Wars

'Sinbad Smith' and the troll pole

'You are powerful': Remembering Aaron Swartz

Encore: Llama at a Wedding

Encore: Unsent Letters

Bonus: The ‘Stinetingler’ himself

Listener beware...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part VI: Something Like Us

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part V: Dating Bots

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part IV: Tay

Encore: Shrinkflation

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part III: Life, death and AI

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part II: Political Bots

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part I: Bot Therapy

Encore: Haunted House, Holy Water

Encore: Olga of Kiev

Encore: Imaginary Friend

Anti-fans, online hate, and Caroline Calloway

Lazy Geoff

Tales from the Crypto | Listener Response: Crypto in the Gaming World

Tales from the Crypto | Part III: Crypto for Kids

Tales from the Crypto | Part II: Bitcoin Beach

Tales from the Crypto | Part I: The Hype

Enigma in Sweatpants

Swimming Hole: The man, the myth, the leap

Encore: Ghost Town

Don't Do That

Jokes, Part II: Stand Up

Jokes, Part I: Sumer Funny, Sumer Not

Alyssa

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